Recent Advances in the Measurement of Arsenic, Cadmium, and Mercury in Rice and Other Foods

Abstract

Trace element analysis of foods is of increasing importance because of raised consumer awareness and the need to evaluate and establish regulatory guidelines for toxic trace metals and metalloids. This paper reviews recent advances in the analysis of trace elements in food, including challenges, state-of-the art methods, and use of spatially resolved techniques for localizing the distribution of As and Hg within rice grains. Total elemental analysis of foods is relatively well-established but the push for ever lower detection limits requires that methods be robust from potential matrix interferences which can be particularly severe for food. Inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) is the method of choice, allowing for multi-element and highly sensitive analyses. For arsenic, speciation analysis is necessary because the inorganic forms are more likely to be subject to regulatory limits. Chromatographic techniques coupled to ICP-MS are most often used for arsenic speciation and a range of methods now exist for a variety of different arsenic species in different food matrices. Speciation and spatial analysis of foods, especially rice, can also be achieved with synchrotron techniques. Sensitive analytical techniques and methodological advances provide robust methods for the assessment of several metals in animal and plant-based foods, in particular for arsenic, cadmium and mercury in rice and arsenic speciation in foodstuffs.

Human exposure to dietary inorganic arsenic and other arsenic species: State of knowledge, gaps and uncertainties

“…The area of analytical methods for iAs has been the subject of recent reviews (Jackson et al, 2015; Maher et al, 2015; Petursdottir et al, 2015) and will be only briefly summarized here.…”

Ingesta de arsénico: el impacto en la alimentación y la salud humana

“…La toxicidad de cada metabolito es un reflejo de su estado de valencia, que determina su reactividad, la vida media y la distribución en el cuerpo. Como resultado, cada especie arsenical puede tener diferentes efectos, dando lugar a grandes diferencias en la toxicidad (2)(3)(4)(5)(6)(7)(8)(9)(10)(11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16) .…”

“…El arsénico se encuentra en pollos, pavos y cerdos, debido al uso de drogas organoarsenicales añadidas a los piensos. La roxarsona, la carbasona y el ácido p-arsanílico, fueron retirados del mercado en los EE.UU en 2013, pero la nitrasona o ácido 4-nitrofenilarsonico, se utilizó en la producción de pavos hasta el 2015 (14) . En Perú, la roxarsona tiene registro vigente como insumo agropecuario (58) .…”

“…Los peces marinos también contienen As in representando alrededor del 10% del As T (13) . El principal compuesto arsenical hallado en aves de corral es el ácido 3-nitro-4 hidroxifenilarsónico (roxarsona), usado en la producción avícola convencional (14) , aquella realizada en forma industrial e intensiva (15) . La Tabla 1 muestra los principales compuestos arsenicales relacionados con alimentos.…”

In situ fast analysis of cadmium in rice by diluted acid extraction-anodic stripping voltammetry

“…The most common methods for Cd detection in rice are atomic absorption spectroscopy (AAS), inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS), inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES), and so on. [6][7][8][9] These methods have achieved quick and exact detection, but they are also time-consuming, require sophisticated equipment and are very demanding for the operator, generally in a laboratory setting. Unlike other countries, China's agricultural production is dominated by scattered smallholders, which also increased a security supervision of difficulty.…”